Michael: Very sad. My libertarian impulses, sharped on this issue due to exposure to homeschooling in CA, suggest that parents should have nearly-complete authority over their children. Clearly, however, that authority does not extend to murder or abuse, so the question is whether refusing medical treatment in favor of prayer constitutes abuse (or in this case, murder).

I’m inclined to say it does, so that these parents are not within their rights, but I can see why others might think differently. I’m also well aware that some will wonder how I can even consider such a possibility. (If the government can intervene when a child is sick, when else can they intervene? Do parents have any rights at all?) Looking back, with a child dead and the info we have, it’s pretty easy to say they made the wrong call. What would we say had the child lived? What about if they child would have faced a life of agony and they chose to withhold treatment to ease her passing? All of these are ugly issue (and I tend to side on the “life” issue on all of them), but they’re all debatable and complicated.

Most of all, sad. I pray that none of us is ever faced with such a situation.

Michael: how awful. What a sad, sad story. Answer to your question? Rearrange these words into a familiar phrase or saying: WAY. NO.

However, the photo of your dog cheered me up no end. What a gorgeous dog. Got a name yet?

Death by lack of faith? An 11 year old dies because her parents don’t use doctors, but rely on prayer. Are they within their rights?

Here’s the dog. Mostly Scottie. A great little girl I’m sure we’ll love.

My good friend and fellow preacher at our ministry Clark Bunch has a beginning blog. Good thoughts. Give him some visits. He’s thrilled with the stats.

Global Lutheranism jumps by two milllion.

I’d be willing to pay for a month or two of MLB TV for Michael. Anyone else want to chip in?

MOD: Thanks for the kindness, Bob, but that’s not necessary. Thanks for being so kind. I’ll be on sabbatical for 8 weeks, so I’ll look at my options when I get back. Like taking hostages. :-)

I could talk a lot about this Reds thing. It’s hard to explain, but I’m a lot like my dad who dealt with his depression by getting involved in Ham radio. Baseball has been my way of coping with a lot of things about myself, and Denise can tell you what it’s like during the offseason. Restless. Unproductive. But during the season the games give me something to think about besides all the stuff I have to think about and don’t want to think about. For example, we’ve got a “revival” coming up here at school in less than a month. I really dread having to face it without the alternative universe.

But I’ll deal. First it’s Gameday audio. Then it’s a major upgrade of the AM antenna, though my AM problems are all related to computers in the house. If I went satellite- which I can’t because of having cable and internet bundled- I’m still not sure I could get the right station. I’m surrounded by people from all over the country who haven’t watched their teams in years, so I just have to tough it out.

I could attempt to become a Braves fan, but that would violate several points of Calvinism.

Anyway, we’ve decided to get a dog, and we are going to get her Saturday. It will be a long trip, but we’re excited about it, even though it will be lots of trouble. I’ll post a picture later. Cairn/Scottie mix. Mostly Scottie.

“I grew up a fan of the Evil Empire, and a fan of the Evil Empire I shall remain until I die. Go Yankees.” – A BHT Fellow

Hey, even Darth Vader was redeemed in the end.  ;-)

Trading the Reds on TV for the Braves, for someone in Kentucky is a real slap in the face.  The solution is to take up a love offering for Michael so he can get Satellite TV.   Although with the sabbatical coming, perhaps it’s not the worst timing….

“I grew up a fan of the Evil Empire, and a fan of the Evil Empire I shall remain until I die. Go Yankees.” – A BHT Fellow

Michael, can you go ahead and write a letter like that for me directed toward AT&T? Mine is a little short. It says, “Hey, AT&T! You suck!”

Michael: I must say, on the whole, you seem to be taking this very well. (sw)

Speaking of American culture my son and I were up at 4am today to watch the Red Sox’s opening game. It was a good one. The pitching was a little rusty but Manny is in fine form (4 RBIs). It’s good to have Baseball back.

Michael, I feel bad about your loss of the Reds on TV. That’s ridiculous. Aren’t they the regional team of choice where you are, or have the Braves taken over all of the South. Or all of the world, actually. I get most Braves games here in BC.

It’s part of our Canadian self-flagellation to say that we hate American culture. The fact is that we love it and consume it in large quantities. We’re just more willing to add stuff from other cultures to our diet. And when one of our own makes it big in the States (which happens a lot – sorry about Celine) then they are considered to have really made it.

Josh: Touché on all points!

Phillip said:

U.S. Culture? You speak too expansively. Here in Dallas...

Scylding, the funny thing is that the Christmas taboo is part of the new “mosaic, not melting pot” idea. Saying “Christmas” or giving people a day off on a major religious holiday is oppressive and devalues other cultures (is Yom Kippur a national holiday in Canada?). Since there are way, way, way too many cultures to acknowledge them all in a single greeting and thus avoid oppressing anyone, nor could we give a day off for every significant day of every religious calendar, we’ve decided that the best way is to just not say anything. We just have a non-denominational winter gift-giving festival every year.  It’s actually part of our bizarre self-flagellating thing.  See, it’s bad and wicked to say “Merry Christmas,” but no one would get offended if you said “Happy Hanukkah.”  They would think your different culture was absolutely charming and wonderful.

we believe US culture to be a contradiction in terms…

I wasn’t trying to pick on Tim, and I’m sorry that it turned out that way.

For what it’s worth, Tim, I’m sure that your life up to this point, combined with your listening and reading habits, have all provided a context in which your statements make perfect sense, just as my context has contributed to me thinking that they don’t. And fortunately, I won’t hold one silly post against you, either. :-)

Tim, don’t feel bad. Talk radio’s conservative icons agree with you. And I think conservative talk radio would go into an equal hissy fit and feeding frenzy over N.T. Wright’s Easter and Empire essay. And I believe N.T. is Jeremiah Wright’s brother as I’ve heard recordings of both of them preaching the gospel.

(sorry to be such a stirrer today… )

NOT!

(I guess I’m sorry I’m not sorry….)

A lurker has asked me to explain how I think Tim got this one wrong, so…

Tim: You’re absolutely and completely wrong on this one in every way. Seriously.

John: No, htop doesn’t work (no /procfs), but ‘top -orsize’ gives much the same effect. Activity Monitor is a nice GUI version. However, I believe Travis was actually referring to “disk space” when he said “memory,” so something like Grand Perspective is actually what he needs. Beats a bunch of manual ‘du -s’ commands, anyway.

Having spent some time listening to Wright, and in context, I agree with Travis.  This man and this church have been dealt a gross injustice by the media.  The AIDS thing is loony, but the God Damn America in context is just prophetic preaching within the tradition of non-violence.  Listen to the context folks.  9 minutes instead of 9 seconds.  Here’s the context.  I’m not sure it’s how I would handle the text, but it’s a compelling point that America needs to hear, especially after a 9/11. 

Michael, do you get the Reds on radio? Baseball on the radio is better than TV, sometimes.

Travis: is htop available for Mac? It’s a Unix application which shows all running processes in a display that can be sorted by memory, CPU time etc. Very handy app.

Michael: that Princess Bride poster was gold.

Incidentally, as regards the banner quote, I’m not sure that Luther did turn the priest round to face the people during the Mass. Perhaps a lurking Lutheran historian could help out with that one. Other than that, the quote is spot on: ”[the Mass] was not something the priest did for God, it was something God did for the people.” Amen.

In the Church of England, incidentally, I believe the westward position was quite rare until recent decades. Anglo-Catholics faced east, while evangelicals stood at the north end of the altar communion table. Westward position is now the norm, however, except in very high-church bells-and-smells outfits.

Meanwhile, the other Wright, N.T. has a post on Easter and Empire.

In all seriousness though, what is (North) American culture, as opposed to say, European culture? Actually, lets include all the majority Anglophone Colonial Cultures – the US, Canada (outside Quebec), Australia and NZ, as well as South Africa, though to a lesser extent. I’m currently reading Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” – but what he says about the US, would apply to the rest as well. Speaking on the “French paradox” – ie the French “bad food choices” vs their longevity, he states the following:

Yet I wonder if it doesn’t make more sense to speak in terms of an American paradox- that is, a notably unhealthy people obsessed by the idea of eating healthily.

He then goes on to say –
As a relatively new nation drawn from many immigrant populations, each with his own culture of food, Americans have never had a single, strong, stable culinary tradition to guide us.

A survey of the theological landscape would indicate the same, no? How much of this derives from certain strains of theological thought more common in the Anglophone tradition than in others? The obsession with rationalist doctrine at the cost of all tradition bears a lot of similarity to the obsession with optimising process and profit at the cost of taste and culinary tradition.

Ouch. She needs some lessons in lying from Billy.

My mental health has been glued together with Reds baseball.

I confess, printers are the one thing I’m not happy about with Leopard. I had a work around for the hp laserjet 1020 (Windoze only; I wasn’t paying attention) and then Leopard came along and I can’t get the steps I used in Tiger to replicate it. Hope you have better luck than I did.

Tim, I think the thing that’s really irking me about your responses is that I agree that the guy has said some irresponsible, looney, ridiculous things…I just don’t like the way you’re going about making your point that because he said those things, we need to vilify the man’s entire life and ministry. I’m not getting back into the race discussion at the moment; I’m simply talking ways and means here. More »« Less

Aaron: This is like a death. I’m serious. My mental health has been glued together with Reds baseball. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Braves. Oh please.

Michael- Go braves and take the Falcons with you.

I went to a church this past Sunday where the resurrection message was not preached. Anyone else find that odd? It is a fairly new church, that I guess, was using Easter to launch the new sermon series because they knew there would be lots of visitors. Really

The defenses of Wright are all built on spurious assumptions.

The Reds have been removed from my cable and replaced with the…......Braves.

God help me. My life is over.

“If we really believe the truth, we shall be decided about it. Certainly we are not to show our decision by that obstinate, furious, wolfish bigotry which cuts off every other body from the chance and hope of salvation and the possibility of being regenerate or even decently honest if they happen to differ from us about the colour of a scale of the great leviathan. Some individuals appear to be naturally cut on the cross; they are manufactured to be rasps, and rasp they will. Sooner than not quarrel with you they would raise a question upon the colour of invisibility, or the weight of a non-existent substance. They are up in arms with you, not because of the importance of the question under discussion, but because of the far greater importance of their being always the Pope of the party. Don’t go about the world with your fist doubled up for fighting, carrying a theological revolver in the leg of your trousers. There is no sense in being a sort of doctrinal game-cock, to be carried about to show your spirit, or a terrier of orthodoxy, ready to tackle hertodox rats by the score . . . These are theologians of such warm, generous blood, that they are never at peace till they are fully engaged in war” (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 224).

(HT To Doug Wilson)

Nevermind.  I just found it.

A couple months ago, a few of you suggested programs that would analyze my MacBook and tell me what’s eating all my memory. I used one and it worked great, and now I don’t remember what it’s called and can’t find it.

So…anyone remember what they suggested I use?

Richard Dawkins reviews “Expelled”. 

Michael, I don’t see why you’d need the combo updater unless you did a reinstall from the Leopard disc recently. And FWIW, I’ve got a similar model of printer with all software current, but nothing’s broken so far. Is your printer new?

MOD :Maybe a year old. Worked fine till an auto update over the weekend. Now the computer and the printer can’t talk. I’ve swapped all cables and switched USB port, etc. It just says “data won’t send” and goes into a pause.

(HT To Lurker BK)